


Daguerreotypes, Herbal Cures, and Vegetable Stew

by MinervaFan



Series: The Sisters Spellman [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:31:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaFan/pseuds/MinervaFan
Summary: Theo Putnam finds an unexpected ally in Hilda, who has more of a history than even her family suspects.





	Daguerreotypes, Herbal Cures, and Vegetable Stew

Hilda found she got better tips when Cerberus was away from the shop. It was easier to flirt with the customers when he wasn’t there. Not that it meant anything, of course. Just good for business.

Sometimes, when she knew he’d be gone the whole day, she’d squeeze herself into the Vampirella costume instead of The Bride. The costume was a bit small for her, which she could have easily fixed with a charm, but she never bothered. The tight dress pushed The Girls up in such a nice way that she allowed herself to be naughty. Only when Cerberus wasn’t in, though. No need to torture the poor man.

 

Besides, she never kept her tips. Money meant nothing to her, and if Cerbie noticed the extra cash in the till at the end of her shifts, he didn’t mention it.

 

Mortals were so curious, she thought to herself as she topped off the foamy mocha with extra chocolate slivers. Were this a witching establishment, she’d have added a little “boost” to the already aphrodisiac properties of the chocolate.

 

But these were humans. She sprinkled a bit of cinnamon with a tiny, whispered prayer before bringing the mugs to the table where the young lovers sat. She knew they were in love, because he’d been the only male not to stare down the front of her dress all afternoon, so focused was he on his sweetheart.

 

She sighed happily as they ignored her, preferring the solitude of their own romantic universe.

 

Mortals were so curious.

 

No matter how she tried, Hilda could not explain her fascination with these brief, intense souls to her more traditional sister. “Everything is so _intense_ for them,” she’d say, and Zelda would wrinkle her nose or flash a superior gaze over the top of her glasses. “They’re fascinating, and I like spending time with them.”

 

This line of conversation had led to centuries of lectures from her elder sister, so much so that Hilda just stopped trying to explain. And when Edward went off and _married_ a mortal, Zelda nearly washed her hands of the lot of them.

 

The sounds of the street through the opening door pulled Hilda from her reverie. She looked up to see young Susie…. _Theo_ Putnam hurrying through the door. His jacket was pulled up high around his neck, a dark blue ball cap low over his eyes. It didn’t take a diagnostic charm to know what the brim of that hat was concealing. Theo ducked her gaze and hurried to a secluded table at the back of the store.

Drawing a deep breath, she opened the glass door on the cooler and pulled out the vile energy drink Theo preferred. It was nothing but sugar, caffeine, and ginko - she could brew a better energy potion in her sleep - but the kids loved it and young Mr. Putnam looked like he could use a boost.

 

“On the house,” she said as she lowered the narrow can onto the table in front of him. Theo had grabbed a book from the shelf, and was hiding under the pretext of reading it. “ _Container Gardening for Beginners_ ,” she noted as she read over his shoulders. “I had no idea you were interested in horticulture.”

 

“Uh, yeah, my dad is into all that stuff. Farming…he’s a farmer.” He shut the book closed, not meeting her eyes. “Thanks for the drink.”

 

“You know, I get off in about an hour.” She lifted his cap and brushed her hand over the brown stubble of hair. “I have a family recipe that will heal that eye in no time.” She lifted his chin, a sympathetic expression softening the vampiric makeup she wore. She smiled, revealing a pair of fangs. “I promise I won’t bite.”

 

His chuckle was weak, but real, and Hilda took it as encouragement. “Honesty, I could use the company. Zelda is taking Sabrina to market instead of me this year, probably to punish me for taking this job, and Ambrose is off feeling his oats. So I’m all by my lonesome in that big house. I’d love it if you’d join me for supper--can I lure you with brownies?”

 

Theo shrugged, grabbing his cap back and pulling it down once more. “You don’t have to do that,” he mumbled. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“I highly doubt that,” she murmured. “That shiner is going to hurt like the dickens in the morning if you don’t put something on it.”

 

“You should see the other guy…”

 

Hilda laughed. “Atta boy, slugger. Nothing ticks off a bully more than a so-called victim who fights back.” Her hand reached gently for the young man’s shoulder. “Please. I know what it’s like…”

 

He shot a glance at her, but managed not to roll his eyes. Of _course_ she knew nothing of his suffering. How could she possibly?

 

Hilda sighed. “Come to the house. I’ll tell you a story.” And she didn’t relent until he finally agreed to meet her at Spellman’s Mortuary in two hours sharp.

 

*

 

It was still odd having mortals in the house who weren’t dead or grieving their loss. Once Sabrina had let the cat out of the bag with her mortal friends, Hilda saw no reason in not allowing them supervised visits on occasion. Zelda was still cautious, stuck in paradigms she refused to release completely, but she allowed at least Harvey, Roz, and Theo to visit with Sabrina.

 

The salve she put on Theo’s eye was a simple mixture of herbs and oils, something a child whose name was still wet in the Book could make. But already, the bruising was fading from an ugly purple to a light grey. She would apply it twice more tonight, and by morning all evidence of the afternoon’s unpleasantness would be gone.

 

“Don’t tell Zelda,” she mentioned _sotto voce_ as she applied the second treatment. “She would kill me if she knew I was healing you with magic.”

 

Theo grinned, a bit of chocolate still clinging to one of his left incisors. “Your secret is safe with me, Miss Spellman.”

 

“I told you to call me ‘Hilda,’” she laughed. The smells from the stove were making her hungry, and she was glad she’d decided to start with dessert. Brownies were highly medicinal, and the young mortal’s improved mood was justification enough for her.

 

But the homey scent of aromatics sweating at the bottom of her cast-iron skillet was enough to remind her stomach that witches do not live on chocolate alone. She lifted the heavy lid, breathing in the steamy goodness of onions,celery, and carrots fading to transparency in the oil. “Just time now.” She took the cutting board and added in the other veggies, coating them generously with spices as they sizzled in the mirepoix, then dousing the entire thing with broth. “Should be ready in about 30 minutes, love,” she assured Theo. “You sure you don’t want some meat? I don’t mind, really. I cook it for the family, even though I won’t eat it myself.”

 

“Nah, I’m good with vegetarian. I mean, this is way better than the spaghetti I was gonna make myself for dinner tonight.”

 

“Doesn’t your dad cook for you?” she asked lightly as she popped the dough into the oven to bake. Nice, hearty bread with lots of seeds would go perfect with the stew.

 

“Not during harvest. Just too busy.” Theo shrugged. “It’s no biggie. I just make something easy and leave his portion in the fridge. I’ve been cooking for a while now.”

 

“Well, I’ll make sure to send a big portion of stew back for him with you.”

 

“He’d like that.”

 

Hilda grabbed a spoon and tasted the warming broth. She added a pinch of powdered garlic, a touch more thyme, and a single spin of the pepper grinder. Another taste and she was satisfied. “There we go. Perfection. On with the lid, and you and I shall retire to the parlor for a good, old-fashioned visit. I have something to show you that I think you’ll find interesting.”

 

If Theo was intrigued, he didn’t show it as he snuck another brownie off the plate and followed her into the parlor.

 

*

 

"Took me nigh an hour to find this," Hilda set the ornately decorated box on the couch between them and laughed with a little snort. "Bad thing about living so long. You do accumulate an awful lot of _stuff_." She reached into the box and retrieved a handful of yellowed papers - news clippings, flyers, and time-worn photographs. Examining one of the pictures, she sighed nostalgically. "Oh! Will you look at that! Such fun we had."

 

Theo took the documents she handed him, scanning the faded pictures with polite interest. It didn't take long to notice that the Victorian men and women were, well, cross-dressing. "These are really cool," Theo ventured, unsure of Hilda's point. A five minute Google search could score hundreds of photos like this. "But I'm not a cross-dresser."

 

Hilda looked up from her pictures and chuckled. "Well, _of course_ you're not, my darling boy."

 

"I've seen a couple of these on the Internet," Theo offered, not wishing to offend.

 

"Leave it to the mortals. Pathologically short attention spans, so they invent the Net to over-compensate." She grinned nostalgically. "Hell’s gate, I sound like Zelds, don’t I? Clever, really, that Internet, though."

 

A glance at Theo's confused expression shook her out of her thoughts. "But that's not what I wanted to show you." Shuffling through the photos, Hilda's voice was downright conspiratorial. "Now, I have not shown these to many people, so you should feel quite important." She handed him a faded 8 x 10 daguerreotype. A group of people in formal wear looked out from the sepia salon, their party hats askew and varying degrees of intoxication evident in their expressions.

 

"Why do they look so serious if it's a party?"

 

"Those bloody daguerreotypes, it was. Took a minute and a half to expose, and if you moved a twitch it was back to the top. If you look closely, you'll notice a couple of folks in the back are actually sleeping." She laughed, then pointed to a stout young man in a long tail coat and dark vest. "Check out that flaxen-haired rogue, will you?"

 

Theo looked closely, then gasped. "That's you?"

 

"Yup. Parties like this were quite the fashion for a time. Music halls, clubs...if you knew the right set, you were bound to meet some bloke in a corset or a gaggle of second daughters larking about in trousers. It was all very smart and scandalous," she added. "Don't tell Zelda about this, though, would ya? I was on the outs with the family at the time and going through a bit of a rebellious phase."

 

“You wore it well.”

 

“Damn right I did.”

 

Theo cleared his throat. “Again, this is all very interesting, but I’m _not_ a cross-dresser.”

 

Hilda allowed her finger to trace the frozen faces from her past, touching each ghost until her touched rested on a single person. “Neither was Charlotte,” she said.

 

A dark-haired fellow next to Hilda stared back at them across the years, face set and strong, serious, yet with a glint of mischief just behind that formal gaze.

 

“Like I said, I was on the outs with my family, so I booked passage to America to strike it out on my own. Set down in Boston Harbor the fall of 1834, and by the time winter was in full swing, I’d secured myself a job as a dressmaker for the Beacon Hill Light Opera Company. In spring of 35, I met Charlotte.” She smiled at the memory. “Eighteen years old, ridiculously talented, and so incredibly determined to make her way through the world.” Still gazing at the picture, Hilda allowed the time to pass as her story unfolded into the night.

 

“She was cast as Lady something-or-other in _The Marriage of Figaro_ . Glorious contralto. Great reviews, and she was on her way.” She put the photo down on the table, leaning back into the cushions of the sofa. “They never knew what to do with her. Kept miscasting her, though, and she eventually lost her voice because she overworked her top range. This was _years_ before microphones and speakers.” She shrugged. “I’d become her dresser. When she couldn’t sing anymore, I got the sack too.”

 

Theo shook his head. “That sucks.”

 

“Oh, it was hard. We’d become best mates by that time, living at the same boarding house. Neither of us knew what to do, honestly. I wouldn’t go back to my family, and she had no family to go back to. I knew she was _different_ , but we understood each other. She was mortal, but I think she knew I was no more normal than she.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

She laughed. “What does any ambitious soul do when they’re out of work with no prospects? We hopped a train to New Orleans. There was a local company advertising for actors, and Charlotte was up for adventure. Problem is, when we got there all the female parts had been cast. So what did she do? She cut off all her hair, dressed up as a man, auditioned under a pseudonym and was cast the very first time!”

 

Hilda paused for a moment, reaching for the picture once more. “We’d done the parties in Boston, of course. Larks, really, dressing like men, seeing how the other half lived. But when we hit New Orleans, something changed. Something changed in Charlotte, and something changed in me, too.”

 

“Were you in love with him?” Theo asked.

 

Hilda drew in a deep breath before answering. Her cheeks were slightly pink, but the look in her eyes was soft and sad. “I loved him, yes. We posed as a married couple to stave off the gossip, and for a good long time, the acting career of Charles Randolph Caldwell was a steady, positive thing. It was like he blossomed, Charles, once Charlotte had been shrugged off completely. Part of me missed her, my best mate, even as I grew more and more attached to Charles.”

 

“What happened?”

 

The was a long silence before Hilda finally pursed her lips and started putting the photos back into the box. “I'm a witch. Charles was mortal. It was never meant to be. Eventually, my aunt Evanora arrived to take me back to Europe. I’d been with Charles fifteen lovely years, and it was getting harder to explain why he continued to age and I did not.” She put the lid back on the box a little more firmly than necessary. “It was never meant to be,” she repeated. “He eventually married a singer named Polly and they lived as man and wife until his death in 1879. Survived the Civil War, moved back north, even founded a theatrical company in Connecticut. I’m not even sure if Polly knew he’d been born a woman. Charlotte was no more, and Charles had become the reality.”

 

The timer went off conveniently in the kitchen. Hilda pasted a sunny expression on her face. “Stew’s on. Come on, lad. You’ll not leave my house hungry tonight.”

 

*

 

“I was wondering, Hilda,” Theo said as he helped with the dishes. “Is Charles the reason you stood up for me last year when those guys were harassing me?”

 

Hilda nodded as she finished dishing leftovers onto a plate for Theo’s dad. She wiped her hands with a cloth napkin before speaking. “Partly. But mainly, I bloody hate bullies. Spent enough time dealing with my own bullies; not about to stand silent while it happens on my watch.”

 

“How did you...how did you know all that stuff about….”

 

She gave him a slight frown. “Never you mind about that, Mr. Putnam. I’m not a mind-reader if _that’s_ what you’re worried about,” she added at his concerned expression. “But some secrets desperately want to be revealed. I know it seemed harsh at the time, but honestly, it’s like draining a cyst. Kinda gross, but necessary.”

 

Theo nodded thoughtfully as they both tried to ignore that regrettable simile. After a long silence, he asked her, “Do you miss him? Charles, I mean.”

Hilda turned the question around in her mind for a moment before answering. “You know, there’s a reason witches frown upon witch-mortal relationships. And it’s _not_ just because you outnumber us by the thousands and have an unfortunate history of hanging us, burning us, and crushing us under stones.”

 

“Sorry about that…”

 

“Nothing personal, mind. But even more than that…” She hesitated, considering her words carefully. “Even more than that…” She sighed. “We _live longer._ Much longer. You live your lives so fast, you’re born, grown, and die in a flash.” A soft blonde curl fell onto her forehead as she shook her head sadly. “It’s hard. It’s painful. Staying young as the people you love age and die. Eventually, every loving, witch parent drills it into their children's heads as soon as they can. _Witches and mortals do not mix._ The need to spare their children from pain turns into a tradition, then a prejudice, then a cultural paranoia.”

 

Theo reached out to take her hand in his. “It doesn’t have to be that way, does it? I mean, is Sabrina going to eventually stop being friends with us, because it’s too hard?”

 

Hilda pulled the young man into a gentle embrace. “I don’t know, love. No one knows what the future brings, not really. Even your friend Ros only gets impressions. We all have free will, and anything is possible.” She winked. “I think the events of the last few months have proven that.”

 

Any response Theo might have given was interrupted by the sound of the clock chiming the hour. “Oh, hell’s bells, it’s late. You should be getting back home, my darling. Don’t want your father to be worried.”

 

Theo stood, taking the plate she offered. “Miss Spellman?”

 

“ _Hilda_ …”

 

“Hilda?” Theo paused at the kitchen door, shrugging into his jacket as he balanced the covered plate in one hand. “Do you mind...do you think we could do this again? I mean, talk?”

 

Hilda beamed. “Why, yes,” she said. “Yes, I think that would be a splendid idea.”

 

The End


End file.
